Another Margaret (The Randy Craig Mysteries Book 6)

by Janice Macdonald

  The thought of that was suddenly making me feel a bit faint, but just then, a couple of paramedics stormed into the room with a gurney and a big black gym bag. They came right toward me, which was in itself a bit scary. In that whole room, knowing that you are the one the medical professionals zone in on immediately has to mean something.

  Denise leaned into my line of sight and held my purse up, and then pointed to Leo. I tried to nod but that set off waves of pain. Steve squeezed my hand, and then backed out of the way to let the medics take over. I was soon strapped on the gurney, with a tighter bandage on, and an oxygen mask over my mouth and nose. As they wheeled me out, I had a fleeting hope that Denise would find the rest of the name tags behind the door, and then giggled a hiccough, thinking that those three or four people who hadn’t made it to the opening reception were really going to be annoyed having missed all this action. This was the sort of special event Sherry Brownlee had been suggesting would make the alumni weekend something to remember for all who attended, and something to regret missing for all those who didn’t. Too bad I couldn’t personally take the credit for it.

  My giggle must have worried the paramedic near my head, because he reached over and patted my hand. “Don’t worry, we’re going to get you to the hospital right away. My partner has radioed ahead and they’re waiting for us.”

  Instead of reassuring me, this actually made my heart start beating a little more frantically. Why would the hospital need to be on call for me? What had happened? I thought back to the strange woman’s angry face, and what she had shouted at me. What had she shouted at me? Where was Steve?

  I must have passed out in the elevator, because I have no recollection of the ambulance ride. It couldn’t have been all that long a ride, anyhow, since we were only a few blocks from the hospital.

  I do recall pushing through the automatic glass doors, and the universal noise of the emergency room, which is two parts moaning, one part baby crying, and a pinch of muttered cursing, mixed in with intercom voices and the constant swoosh of shower curtains being drawn back and forth.

  The paramedics handed me off to an emergency nurse and two interns who took my vitals while waiting for the doctor to arrive. She didn’t take long, which again was a worrisome thing. It meant I was triaged up to urgent, which is really something you never want to be, in your heart of hearts, even if it means you get through the emergency procedures first.

  “Hi there, Miranda,” she said, “I understand you were stabbed at a party?”

  “Was I?” I croaked. She looked at me as if I might have a concussion, as well. I tried to elaborate. “It all happened so quickly. She just screamed at me, and then my shoulder hurt.”

  “Yes, well you have a plastic picnic knife thing lodged over your clavicle and piercing your supraspinatus muscle at the very least. It may have nicked a ligament, as well. You are exceedingly lucky that she didn’t manage to connect with your subclavian artery or get an inch or two over and hit your jugular. You are also lucky that your friends knew enough not to pull it out. As it is, you’ve lost a lot of blood and we are going to give you an infusion after we patch you up. How does that sound?”

  “Scary.”

  “Yes, well, maybe you should rethink the kinds of parties you attend, right?”

  She left the cubicle, and the nurse patted my hand. “I’m going to have to cut away this top, to get you ready for the surgery.” I nodded. My reputation was already in shreds, why shouldn’t my clothing follow? Leo could bring me something to wear home, I figured.

  Since everyone around me seemed to have it all in hand, and I had been demoted to being a girl who puts herself in danger by going to wild parties, my brain decided to opt out of the process. Any time they went near my shoulder, the pain radiated all the way down to my fingertips and up to my eyebrows, but the nurse kept murmuring to me that they couldn’t give me anything for the pain since I’d be under anaesthesia soon. I moaned a little, and then I must have passed out again, because the next thing I knew I was being patted on the right hand, and a voice was calling, “Miranda, Miranda.”

  I fought to open my eyes. A woman in green scrubs was standing beside me.

  “It’s time to wake up. You’re in the recovery room. You’ve had plastic taken out of your shoulder muscles and been stitched up, and you’ve had a pint of blood top-up. You’re going to feel pretty weak and woozy for the next few days. We’re going to keep you here in the hospital over the weekend, and then the doctor will decide what to do with you, okay?”

  I was indeed pretty woozy. I tried to nod, but movement from my head pulled against whatever they had done to my left shoulder, and it felt like a deep burn somewhere. I wiggled my fingers, and they seemed fine, so I decided to take what the nurse was saying at face value.

  “The doctor will be in to see you in a while. Meanwhile, there is a fellow outside named Steve Browning who says you will want to see him. Would you like me to show him in?”

  I nodded again, and it was worth the burn to see Steve loom up into view a few minutes later.

  “Jesus, Randy, you had me worried. How are you feeling?”

  He sat beside my bed, and held my right hand. I started to cry. Now that the danger was gone and the emergency was over, my eyes welled up with tears. That’s me, always at the ready at the wrong damn moment.

  “What happened, Steve? It’s all mixed up in my head.”

  “It’s all mixed up in everyone’s heads still,” Steve grimaced. “The woman who attacked you is named Natalie Dussault. Does that ring a bell?”

  “Nope. I swear, I never laid eyes on her before.”

  “No? Well, she according to her, she had a relationship with Guy Larmour off and on since his grad school days, though it sounds more as if she was stalking him these past few years. She was his student in one of her first-year courses and went into the Honours program to be close to him. When she got to the hotel for the reunion—which she wasn’t officially registered for, but had heard about through the Alumni Association newsletter, and was attending with the hopes of running into Guy—she heard about his death, and someone told her that you were involved.”

  “Who would say that?”

  “She won’t say, she only admits that she asked someone to point you out at the party. It makes me wonder if there isn’t someone manipulating a lot of this behind the scenes. I can’t do much more than relay information to Iain and the rest of them at the station, since I am officially not on the case. I was interviewed last night, along with Denise and Leo, who by the way is coming in to see you as soon as visiting hours are open.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Right now? It’s just after nine in the morning. They operated on you around 4:30. I guess the emerg was hopping last night, and that was the soonest they could get into the theatre. Still, be glad you weren’t taken downtown. A plastic knife in the shoulder would probably still be waiting to be seen at the Royal Alex, while they dealt with the steel blades.”

  I must have looked as bleary as I felt, because Steve called over to a nurse passing by. She consulted my chart, and told us that I was going to be moved upstairs in about ten minutes, but she would go get me a warm blanket from the autoclave to make me a bit more comfortable.

  Pretty soon I was cocooned in warmth, with Steve sitting beside me as I faded in and out. It was almost half an hour before the moving men came to take me upstairs, and they turned out to be one small nurse who refused aid from Steve. She manoeuvred my bed adeptly through several sets of double doors, down two or three corridors, into an elevator and up over a bridge walk high in the atrium-covered hospital. Soon I was settled into a room for four, with two of the other beds occupied. I wasn’t in any mood or position to make introductions, so I decided a nap was the better part of valour.

  Steve pulled the privacy curtain obligingly, kissed me on the forehead and told me he would be back in a few hours. I smiled a weary smile and watched him move down the length of my bed and beyond the curtains
marking my space. The anaesthetic was just beginning to wear off and a dull pain was creeping up the side of my neck and settling in around my elbow. I was just looking for the nurse’s button when she appeared, pushing a blue box on a pole with an IV bag hanging from it along ahead of her.

  “For the next day or so, you are going to get pain relief when and how you want it. I am just going to attach this drip to your hand.” She talked brightly as she swabbed my hand with mercurochrome, found a vein and taped the tube to my hand to avoid it ripping out accidentally. She then pressed a few buttons on the blue box, handed me a control and showed me the button to press.

  “However much you want to control the pain, which is going to be pretty impressive as the anesthetic wears off. I find most women tend to underdose, but there is no badge at the end for being a brave little cowboy. If you’re in pain, press that button.”

  I smiled. It was a good speech, and worked as intended. I pressed the button and pretty soon the morphine slid into effect.

  44.

  The next time I woke up, it was Leo sitting beside my bed.

  “Oh my god, girl, you had me so scared! And now look at you, all Joan Crawford gorgeous, hooked up to god knows what. How are you feeling? Would you like a piece of candied ginger? My grandmother always insisted that was what one brought to a sickbed, and do you know how damn hard it is to find candied ginger in this town? If you need any more, it’s at Planet Organic, but really, the lengths to which I had to go.”

  “Water?” I croaked.

  Leo busied himself pouring water from the blue plastic carafe into the glass, and pop the bendy straw toward my mouth. He held the glass carefully, and watched to see the moment my lips unlocked from the straw.

  “Better?” he nodded, and sat the glass onto the rolling table over my bed. I smiled my agreement, and surreptitiously pressed my button for another jolt of pain reduction.

  “How are things going with the reunion?” I asked.

  Leo laughed. “That’s what you’re wondering about? Denise really does have you trained well.” He sat back and rearranged what I realized were three scarves around his neck. “Well, last night was a bit of a shemozzle after you left with the paramedics. Steve had Alan Knight and Gerald almost sitting on that Natalie Dussault character till the troops arrived to haul her out of there. She was spitting and cussing, and acting as if she was the wounded party, so Denise had to make a couple of announcements after she was gone to bring everyone else up to speed about things that had been happening. Turned out most of the people there had already heard about Guy’s death, so that wasn’t all that much of a shock.”

  “How?”

  “Oh, they’re all staying at that Garneau Hotel, it turns out. Denise managed to get the best deal in town for alumni, so half of the medical class of ’81 is there, too. The whole place was buzzing with the murder and then the Golden Bears beat the UBC Thunderbirds, so that became the topic of discussion. I was over there for breakfast this morning, to meet up with Alan Knight, and Shannon and Gerald joined us. For someone who doesn’t say much, Gerald certainly knows what is happening all around him. For instance, did you know that Dr. Spanner was Guy’s PhD advisor? Neither did I. Gerald thinks the police should be examining her connection to Natalie Dussault, as well.”

  I smiled. It amazed me to think Gerald Wandio would even get a word in edgewise with Leo around. And his theories did sound worth pursuing. But it didn’t surprise me at all to hear that Denise had worked miracles with the hotel bookings. I was sorry that I’d been the cause of problems for her alumni weekend. For the amount of effort she put into things, it should have come off without a hitch.

  Leo must have been able to read my mind, or perhaps it was because of the same old “don’t play poker” face that Steve teased me about.

  “Don’t worry about messing things up, Randy. For one thing, you can’t help it if a homicidal fangirl goes on the attack, and for another thing, you have been instrumental in making this a homecoming weekend no one is ever going to forget. You should have seen those doctors this morning looking longingly at our table. I am just hoping their organizer doesn’t off one of them just to match us.”

  I laughed, and far from being the best medicine, it caused a seismic wave of pain radiating from my collarbone, making even my intestines wince. Leo winced too, in sympathy. “Oh Randy, I am sorry. I will try to be less entertaining and diverting. Don’t laugh. Let us pray.”

  I smirked. Leo was going to make me use up a day’s worth of morphine if I didn’t watch it.

  “Did you talk to the police?”

  “Oh my, yes. I spoke with Steve’s partner, who, let me tell you, is not your greatest fan. I think that most of that is because Steve is officially not on the case, due to being part of the mise en scène, and that means more work for Officer Iain.” Leo flicked one of his scarves. “They had us all processed and interviewed and in and out before 11, because the university security folks were hovering and wanting to lock up the building. I tell you, there is just something about a man in a uniform, and they were milling about everywhere last night!”

  “What is happening today, then?”

  “Denise was hoping to get by to see you after she has done her shift in the homecoming tent in the Quad. There didn’t seem to be a way out of that, because that is the price you pay to the Alumni Association for having your events publicized in their online newsletters and in the New Trails summer issue.”

  “That publicity is what got me here, though, right?”

  “I don’t think they’re focusing on that.”

  “Are you going over there?”

  “Yes, I thought I would join her for a bit, and then get myself a Tuck Shop cinnamon bun and do a campus tour. The dinner at the Faculty Club has already been prepaid, so I wasn’t planning to miss that, either. But I could come back here after dinner?”

  I shook my head slowly. I probably didn’t need Leo pouting about missing anything, and I figured Steve would be back to see me later, anyhow. The thing that worried me was getting keys back from Leo when he had to leave on Sunday night. We sorted out the fact that since Steve had a key to my apartment, Leo could just leave the keys on the table and pull the door closed with only the doorknob lock. All this, of course, was contingent on me still being in the hospital, which I wouldn’t really know about until I saw the doctor.

  I waved Leo off and drowsed a bit more.

  45.

  Around 3 p.m., the surgeon who had patched up my shoulder appeared. She seemed awfully young to have been tinkering with my trapezius, but I was too tired to worry about it. She explained the various bits she had patched up, but I had a hard time following what would dissolve naturally as the muscle knitted back together and what I would have to come back to the outpatient area to have removed and seen to in a few weeks.

  Her determination, after poking around under the huge white bandaging on my left shoulder, was that I would likely be a guest of the University Hospital for another couple of days, but after that I should be able to pick up my life as usual, with only a few modifications. As she left, I tried to sort out in my mind what I would have to do. If Steve could call the English Department on Monday, or pick up my laptop and bring it over to help me write an email, I could have my Monday and Tuesday classes cancelled. This early in the term, it would be no hardship to the students, who would probably give me higher points on Rate My Professor as a result. I could cut one short story from the syllabus and still manage a good cross-section.

  I would have to apologize to Denise for copping out of helping her with the tent event, but the rest I decided to forget about. Since I still couldn’t even place the woman who had stabbed me with plastic cutlery, what help was I going to be at a reunion?

  I surrendered myself to the rhythms of the hospital, and was pleasantly surprised to see Steve standing beside my bed the next time I woke up.

  He reached over to squeeze my hand on the unbandaged side of my body, but even so I must have w
inced, because he just patted it and sat down next to my bed.

  “Does the name Natalie Dussault mean anything to you now?”

  “No. I’ve been trying to place her and I’m still getting nothing.”

  “Don’t worry about it. No one at the reunion seems to be any the wiser, either. She apparently was doing a BA in English around the time you were doing your MA and Guy Larmour had been her TA for English 100. It’s pretty clear from her statement that she figures they had a closer relationship than just student and TA. According to her, she was going to be meeting him this weekend to rekindle their love.”

  “And she stabbed me because she thinks I was the one who killed him?”

  “Supposedly. At any rate, she has associated you with his death, so I think we need to pay attention to the angle that Guy was killed by someone associated with the whole Margaret Ahlers/Hilary Quinn situation. The woman is clearly insane, but sometimes people like that have an uncanny instinct for an actual truth.”

  “Leo was saying something about Gerald thinking something useful.”

  “Yes?”

  I tried to pull back the conversation I’d had with Leo, but my thoughts were blunted and fuzzy, no doubt due to the little button close by my hand. “It was something about Guy,” was all I could manage.

  “Don’t worry about it. I am sure Iain and his crew will be on top of things. I’ve briefed him on all the nuances, so he’ll be aware of what to be looking for.”

  “How can I help you?”

  “You can help me by resting up and getting mended and out of here. I’m not on the case, remember? Even more so, now that you are perceived as another victim, rather than just a person of interest in the original murder.”

  “If it was the original murder,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, with Guy’s death and this Natalie’s focus, I am leaning more and more to the possibility that Hilary Quinn was murdered, and didn’t actually commit suicide. There is someone else moving around in this. But who else benefits? Guy gets a book deal. The writer-in-residence trust gets the executor’s stipend. Ahlers’ heirs get whatever royalties roll in. You have to follow the money, Steve.”